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About Sabie

Sabie is a forestry town situated on the banks of the Sabie River in Mpumalanga, South Africa. The name Sabie is derived from the Tsonga Shangaan word "Ulusaba" which means fearful. The Shangaan called this river Ulusaba because the river was once teeming with dangerous Nile crocodiles and as a result, the Tsonga Shangaan people dubbed it Ulusaba (fearful river). The word Ulusaba was modernized by the Afrikaner colonialists who changed it from Ulusaba Shangaan into the Afrikaans version "Sabie". The town was started after H.T. Glynn and J.C. Ingle found gold there and formed the Glynns-Lydenburg Gold Mining Company.

Sabie is located 360 kilometres east of Johannesburg and is 64 kilometres west of the popular Kruger National Park. It is known for its scenery and beautiful waterfalls, and is a popular tourist destination. Its main industry is forestry. The plantations surrounding Sabie form one of the world's largest man-made forests.

It is situated approximately 1,000 metres (3,281 feet) above sea level and is in the summer rainfall area. During the winter period, there is little rainfall, and the area can become intensely dry. Forest fires are prevalent during this time, therefore precautions are taken before hand to create fire breaks, as well as to incorporate block burning

Sabie is also a tourism based town and relies on the steady flow of tourists year round to keep the community economy going. There are many attractions in and around the town itself. Of these the most popular is the Lone Creek Falls about 10 km (6 mi) outside of town. There are many other waterfalls in the area, such as Maria Shire, Horseshoe, Forest Falls and of course the Sabie River falls situated within the town itself.

About Graskop

Graskop is a small town in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. It was set up in the 1880s as a gold mining camp but it now serves as a tourist destination and the timber industry. The name is Afrikaans for grassy peak. “God’s Window”, a scenic view from the escarpment of the Lowveld below, is located outside the town.

Town 14 km south-east of Pilgrim's Rest and 28 km north of Sabie. It was laid out between 1880 and 1890 on a farm belonging to Abel Erasmus, Native Commissioner of the Transvaal Republic. Named after a grassy hillock (Afrikaans gras, ‘grass’, kop, ‘hillock’). Originally it was a mining camp. It is the best place to view the "Edge of the Lowveld", with a sudden drop of 700 metres.

About Pilgrim's Rest

Pilgrim’s Rest (Afrikaans: Pelgrimsrus) is a small town in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa which is protected as a provincial heritage site. It was the second of the Transvaal gold fields, attracting a rush of prospectors in 1873, soon after the MacMac diggings started some 5 km away. Alluvial panning eventually gave way to deeper ore mining. In the 1970s the town, not greatly changed, became a tourist destination.

The alluvial gold(a type of gold) was discovered by prospector Alec Patterson. He panned Pilgrim's Creek, as it became known, when the nearby MacMac diggings became too crowded. He kept his find a secret, but a gold rush resulted when fellow prospector William Trafford registered his claim with the Gold Commissioner at MacMac. After it was officially declared a gold field in September 1873, the town suddenly grew to 1,500 inhabitants searching for alluvial gold.

About Mashishing

Mashishing (previously Lydenburg) is a town in Thaba Chweu Local Municipality, Mpumalanga, South Africa. Officially known as Mashishing, Lydenburg is situated on the Sterkspruit/Dorps River tributary of the Olifants River at the base of the Long Tom Pass. The name is derived from the Dutch Lijdenburg, or "Town of Suffering". Lydenburg has become the centre of the South African fly-fishing industry and is an agricultural and mining hub.

The earliest known forms of African sculpture in southern Africa dating back to AD 400 was found in the area in the late 1950s. Lydenburg was founded in 1849 by a group of Voortrekkers under the leadership of Andries Potgieter when they abandoned their previous settlement Ohrigstad (to the north) due to a malaria epidemic. The town became the capital of the Lydenburg Republic ('De Republiek Lydenburg in Zuid Afrika') in 1856 and later in 1857 joined the Republic of Utrecht but in 1860 both these republics joined the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek (ZAR).

Lydenburg became important because it was on the wagon route to the port of Delagoa Bay (now Maputo Bay) which was free of British control. In 1871 construction of the road was started by Abraham Espag under the orders of President Thomas François Burgers. The first wagons arrived in Lydenburg from Delagoa Bay in 1874.

On 6 February 1873 alluvial gold was discovered and within 3 months the Lydenburg goldfields was proclaimed. The First Boer War broke out between Britain and the Transvaal Republic in 1880. A British garrison under Lieutenant Walter Hillyar Colquhoun Long (uncle of the 1st Viscount Long) took control of Lydenburg to control the goldfields. It was from here that the ill-fated 94th Regiment under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Philip Robert Anstruther marched to Pretoria. The remainder of the garrison at Lydenburg was besieged from 6 January 1881, following Long's refusal to surrender the garrison on 23 December 1880.

By 1910 the railway reached Lydenburg. In 1927 Lydenburg became a municipality.